Step 6: Lace other shoe

Step 7: Go out and enjoy your new shoes

Go enjoy your comfortable and carefree shoes. Post pictures of your shoes in the comments if you can. After a while your feet may outgrow the laces. M...

I got tired of my bike's pedals catching my laces, so I decided to ditch my laces and go for something else. I ended up with using inner tubes to turn them into slip-ons. They stretch out to put your foot in, and stretch back tight. Mine are incredibly comfortable and very convenient.

All you need is a pair of shoes (laced), an inner tube, and scissors. Go to your local bike shop and ask for old inner tubes. Explain why you need them and they will most likely always give them to you.

Step 1: Unlace shoes

A very easy part. Take off the shoes' old laces. Keep them around to get a sense of how long the new ones need to be.

Step 2: Cut inner tube

Lay out the inner tube and cut it the same length as the shoe lace. Then take that tube and cut two 1 cm. wide strips from it. Some tubes already have markings around 1cm. like in the third picture. Do not leave any jagged edges as they could get worse and rip when stretched.
(You can use scissors, x-acto knives, or rotary cutters to cut it)

Step 3: Lace the shoes up

Another simple part. You can get all fancy with this if you'd like. Just lace the shoes with inner tube strips you cut.

Step 4: Adjust the laces

Adjust the laces so they are tight, but can still slip off when you want them to. When they are nice and tight, keep the shoe on your foot and do the first step of tying a shoe, like in the picture.

Step 5: Tie the knot

It doesn't really matter what kind of knot you tie. Just tie a tight, small knot and the rubber will keep it tight. Cut off the excess tube hanging off (pic. 2)

An update on the pictures I posted beforehand - I retired this pair of shoes today. I wore these shoes every day for a year after making the laces, until one recently snapped (Probably of my own doing anyways... there were a few thin spots in the rubber strips.). These laces could probably outlast the lifespan of any shoe.

It did! I just taper cut mine at a shallow angle for about 3/4 of an inch, and they went through the tiny holes of my 9-year-old's Asics perfectly.

My daughter suffers from a sensory processing disorder that makes tying shoelaces a huge frustrating deal every morning, but none of the decent, supportive brands of cross-trainers or runners have velcro fastenings. We have experimented with a few different kinds of stretchy lace, but they look terrible and untidy, or the elastic wasn't high quality enough for a shoe.

Like darlingtom, I also made them narrower. Additionally, I laced them straight-bar method rather than criss-cross. The finished shoe looks amazing - very neat and tidy! I will add a picture when she comes home.. I whipped this up in the 10 minutes before she went to school today, and didn't get a chance to record it for you. :)

Heat-shrink tubing is much less flexible than the rubber, especially after being heated and shrunk. One of the problems using it in electronics is that if it is flexed too much it cracks and becomes useless.

Perhaps some kind of silicone adhesive, say clear RTV between the knot and tongue?

Great idea. My job has a small bike shop in the basement, so I grabbed an old tube (I've yet to have an irreparable flat on my own bikes) and chopped it up. Now my grody bike-sneakers are less of a pain in the behind to get on and off.And I love the statement made by wearing accessories made of used bike parts - very DIY bikepunk.

Such an awesome idea. You are a very talented individual. Hopefully some greedy corporation doesn't swoop this up before you get a chance to have your creative genius discovered and acknowledged. good luck